Ready to hit the road

ROMSEY Community House received a very generous gift on Friday, with a car donated to the house’s community transport program.

The donation of the Holden Commodore and $1000 annually for registration and other costs was organised by the Zonta Club of Kyneton, working alongside an anonymous benefactor.

Romsey Community House coordinator Michelle Balthazar said the donation will help expand the community transport program which helps people get to medical appointments.

“It means more people are able to volunteer in this initiative so we can make it more available to more members of the community,” she said.

“It started off small to gauge what the interest is and there’s very much a demand now.”

Starting small meant only making three or four trips a month, but now the program is helping people get to where they need to go with up to 15 trips a month and 70 trips over the past six months.

“It’s definitely meeting a major gap in the community in terms of service provision and accessibility to services. What we’ve seen is a lot of people who just can’t get to their appointments cancel and that’s become so problematic,” Ms Balthazar said.

“We’re aiming to catch the people who are falling through the gaps and might not have family or other community members there to support them to get them to those appointments.”

“We’d just like to thank all the drivers we have on board, without them, we can’t do it.

“Some drivers even take six hours if someone’s going for medical treatment in Melbourne. They wait with the patient and bring them back so it’s a really beautiful building of relationships within the community as well.”

Romsey Community House is welcoming any volunteer drivers who would like to contribute in any way, even if they can only do one trip.